Three Beats Like a Waltz
by Corsairway
Summary: September 17th 2013. The date would stick in Waylon Park's mind for decades to come. The letter he wrote to Mile Upshur would be his savior and destroyer. It didn't even bother Miles to identify himself as a crazy person. You would have to be crazy if you didn't witness Mount Massive 'without' any sort of mental repercussions. Rated M for mature subjects.
1. Chapter 1

_**Guess who is still alive! I am still writing Drowning in Your Good Intentions. As you may have noticed Winter Waltz was deleted due to the fact I am writing a better AryaHound adventure. Lots of blood, snark and trying to backstab rolled up into a nice fanfiction.**_

_**Trigger warning of suicidal thoughts and actions plus some other stuff so if you aren't into reading that, don't read.**_

_**Since I've last posted I've gotten into Person of Interest and Outlast so here is my contribution to the Outlast community. Really ship Eddie and Waylon together in an interesting way. Just read and you'll realize it isn't that bad. BTW this is written in the idea of what if Gluskin, Trager and a few others weren't killed. Chris Walker is not included because fuck him and his teeth.**_

Chapter 1: The Skinning of the Lionheart

September 17th 2013. The date would stick in Waylon Park's mind for decades to come. The letter he wrote to Mile Upshur would be his savior and destroyer.

Hell on Earth had never fit any sort of situation Park had been in before till the Riot. Two hours prior he had desperately sent the email containing Murkoff's treatment of the patients at Mount Massive Asylum. Just as the email was sent, a security officer interrupted him to inform him that he had been paged several times to the Morphogenic engine's main control room.

That was the first time he met him. The Groom, the Man Downstairs, the Thing below Eddie Gluskin. As he fixed the program to retrieve the camera view again, the test subject 196, or as Waylon would soon learn Eddie Gluskin had broke free from the guard's iron hold and begged for mercy against the glass window.

A whole year had passed since then and yet the images of the previous brides strung up like some sort of demented Christmas decorations burned beneath his eyelids and the feeling the cascaded down his spine when he heard something start whirling as if Frank 'The Cook' Manera would come casing him again with that cursed chainsaw.

So many things had changed for the worse ever since he escaped Mount Massive. Murkoff had tried very hard to cover up their implicative activities stopping at literally nothing. They were finally uncovered by Park, but tried very hard in the progress to stop him. They weren't scared with the idea of killing...

She wasn't dead, his boys weren't dead thought. It sometimes did feel that way. Divorce isn't an easy thing. He wished it didn't end up like it did, but with his panicking and paranoia had put an end to their relationship.

It was for their children for the most part. Waylon couldn't stand to see the concern on their young faces when there should only be child like wonder and other little things that came along with innocence. He talked to them over Skype every week. His youngest would always giggle to the point of tears when their video chat would first start. His oldest was getting to that age where he had to pretend to be _all _mature and the ideal big brother, but that six year old would be having a mass fit of giggles by the end of their chats.

Lisa was always there beside them with their four year old in her lap, smiling with a strained look as if she still couldn't believe the man she was looking at was actually the man she fell in love with. He wasn't a sight for sore eyes. Losing so much weight from stress made him a stranger even to himself. It was a true surprise that his kids recognized their own father the second they laid eyes on him.

It was a rainy Thursday on the west coast. Despite the rain, New York City functioned as it always did; in an organized chaos of sirens, mass talking, horns honking and the smell of chemicals being released from the pavement. There was something about that smell; it was as if the air was being cleansed. The intoxicating smell of petrichor hung in the air so heavily that even when he was in the cab it sifted through the metal exterior and into the well worn, musty back seats. The drive to his therapist's office was slow and infuriating to those who weren't use to it, but Park had a lot of experience. Three days every week, he would make the same route down to one of the large brick buildings and talk to Dr. Theron for an hour about what he was going through emotionally. She was a kind and understanding doctor, but he found that talking to her got tiring.

He stuttered.

His doctor had explained how trauma can bring dormant hereditary disorders such as mild schizophrenia. He had an uncle who stuttered due to physical trauma at birth, but besides that he could pinpoint anyone else who had had that speech disorder.

The stuttering didn't appear till a week after his escape. It was when he learnt that certain patients for Mount Massive had lived especially the one that were the cause of his nightmares did he have a severe panic attack fearing that they would come after him did stammering become a problem.

"How have you been Waylon?" Laurel Theron's voice was a familiar one and still he always jumped whenever he heard her speak.

"Q-q-q-q-quite well, th-thank you. How ab-b-bout yourssself?"

"Wonderful, I was hoping we could go off from last session..."

It was the same as always, Waylon stumbled his way through the session taking longer than a normal person would taking about his ex-wife, his children, what had been going through his head when he sent the email to Miles Upshur, the feeling of dread that he got when he hid in the many lockers around Mount Massive to escape variants and so on and so forth.

The one thing he could stammer about was the patients who had survived. Ricard Trager who had been found under a pile of rubble, Dennis the Dissociative Identity Disorder variant who had wanted to give him to "the thing below', Frank Manera who had tried to cook him, Eddie Gluskin who had lost a lot of blood yet still survived his impaling and the voices from the basketball court who he had only been heard called the Twins. A pyromaniac, epileptics, masochists and so many more who now resided at Redwood Psychiatric Institute were his fears.

Those were the people who owed him their lives along with another man. Another person he had trouble talking about because of what Waylon's email did to him...

Losing an index finger was harder than Miles had thought it to be. He could barely write his own name with his dominant hand.

A kid learning to write his own name would look better than his. That snot machine and his gang of mouth breathing dirt magnets would probably laugh and bully on the reporter when they saw his pathetic attempt of writing Miles Upshur.

The idea of being picked on by some kindergarteners really made him sick to his stomach.

The fingers bothered him more that he would like to admit. Some nights he would think that he could still feel them. Phantom limbs his doctor had called it. More like a phantom pain the ass. He use to chew at the stubs that he once called his right index and left ring fingers till they would bleed. His wrists were made for that, not the hands he couldn't cover up as easily.

Endorphins that his body produced at the rate that akin to cheaply made McDonald's toys when he dragged the razor vertically and horizontally on his arms was orgasmic. For ten minutes at the least he would forget Trager's fuck ugly face, Chris Walker and his protruding teeth, Father Martin burning on the cross like some demonic version of Christ and of course the Walrider and its terrible smoky appearance.

He had a pray from them every night along with the Twins, Rudolf Wernicke, and other variants who had tried to kill him along the way. It went like this, _fuck you, fuck you, and did I mention fuck you. Hope you fucking rot in hell one day for you fuckers that are still alive. Also, fuck you!_

He wasn't a forgiving person.

Learning how some of his nightmares were being rehabilitated gave him this sensation as if his belly was aflame. Learning how Trager was still alive somehow after being turned into Trager Juice really fucked him up. At least knowing that Chris Walker was still dead at the hands of the Walrider was the only thing that allowed him to sleep at night.

Even then his mind would race about with the ideas of what happened. He was lucky when he was rescued from Mount Massive and even luckier that the Walrider did little physical damage to him when he was possessed by it. From the time that the Walrider attacked the security team and Wernicke to when he woke up in the hospital with tubes coming out of him was a blur. They didn't know how the Walrider left him or why it did only that he was still Mile Upshur, but with less fingers than before.

His life before was a busy one. Always on the move to get the latest scoop that would keep him fed. Now it was therapy session after therapy session.

The only real good thing that came out of the whole ordeal was all the care he received and his dwellings were paid for thanks to Murkoff's demise. Retribution if you will.

During his spare time he wrote until his fingers were sore. He wrote about what he saw during the riot, he wrote about the few patients that he had seen during rehabilitation, he wrote about anything that would push the burdens off his chest. Very therapeutic his therapist would say; very tiring Miles would rebut. Everything now a day he did was always tired. With a cocktail of Lexapro, Zoloft, and Fioricet he was not exactly the best functioning adult out there. Lexapro made him drowsy, and caused nausea if he smelt certain things, Zoloft was the source of lack of appetite and Fioricet made him dizzy if he got up too quickly. Sometimes he would pass out because of the dizziness, the worse incident of it being him passing out in the shower.

Everything was different now. Once he loved to walk about New York City where he spent most of his earlier reporter days. Now he feared to go down to the lobby to get the mail. Sometimes he could even answer the door for room service at the independent mental care apartment complex he live in. It just showed how bad his anxiety was if he couldn't even answer the door to some nice nurse.

Whenever Miles would think back on it, he would realize that his anxiety even stopped him from exploring his new home. It was like a hotel for those who need certain mental care, but with enough independence mixed into it that it didn't feel like a long term care home. You could leave the complex when you wanted and you had a team of people waiting on you. It was like the Ronald McDonald home, but for nutters.

It didn't even bother Miles to identify himself as a crazy person. You would have to be crazy if you didn't witness Mount Massive 'without' any sort of mental repercussions.

_**Well that's just the introduction chapter I suppose.**_

_**The skinning of the Lionheart technically means taking away some courageous person's courage which will be a slight theme throughout this story.**_

_**I just wanted to mention that before someone asked about it.**_

_**You're welcome**_

_**MademoiselleKraut**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**I'm going to warn you now that I have included a third narrative point in this story just for this chapter and maybe the rare few others. I want to introduce the mental institution as quickly as possible. Don't expect a buttload of this character being the focal point.**_

Chapter 2: Above the Knees, Below the Navel

"I feel like I'm going to throw up."

"Here's a garbage pail."

Miles' therapist wore a strained smile that said; please don't puke all over my couch. Dr. Evans was an older man whose hair showed his increasing age. He was clammy, pale and Miles hated him for the fact that the stupid man thought that a smile could fix everything.

"I am not going to visit Redwood."

"I'm not forcing you Mr. Upshur, but-"

"Not buts! I refuse to go!"

"It would decrease your illusions of the once violent patients. To see how they are adapting would-"

Miles interrupted the man by raising his hands up to show the doctor the missing finger. The man turned pale as the dark look on Miles grew. "The bastard who took my fingers is there. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me crippled."

He jerked himself out of the sagging leather couch and marched out of Evans' office. He slammed the door so hard on his way out he swore he could hear the door creak under pressure.

Anger set him aflame. The idiot of a doctor had 'suggested' going to Redwood Psychiatric Institute to confront his fears. He had once again gone and slapped therapeutic onto something to try and get the reporter to go along with something. The fact that Evans thought that that word would make things all better made Upshur want to punch his unwanted therapist in the throat.

When he left the office building, it was still raining. It hadn't stopped for three days straight now and it was beginning to get on his nerves, but that was no feat; everything got on his nerves now a days.

Instead of hailing a cab, Miles decided to walk back to his 'cozy abode' with the risk of getting a cold. He didn't like cabs too much, he'd rather walk about. Having his legs moving always brought this sense of relief probably due to what happened at Mount Massive.

As he walked amongst the deafen crowd of New Yorkers on that rainy afternoon in this thoughts he focused on the idea that his therapist had suggested. Going against what he had said back in the office, he liked the idea of facing the monsters of Mount Massive. He wanted to do so mostly so he could see Trager, make the bastard hurt then leave. He also wanted to meet the monsters he had not had the pleasure of meeting, such as the Cook. He wanted to get a feeling of what the other man had felt, what Waylon had felt to be exact when he confronted these things for the first time.

If there was one thing for certain, Upshur was glad some days that he had been in Trager's ward. After seeing Park's own footage, losing a couple of fingers was better than being Gluskin's temporary bride.

Through the noisy, wet streets Upshur thought about Park. The closer he got to his 'home' the more he wished that he had met him before being transferred to the Big Apple. He thought about how he wanted to ask what it felt like to see what the doctor's were doing to the patients, how much fear must have run through him as he wrote the letter that would label him as the Whistleblower, how it was like to almost be slice and sewn on Gluskin's table, and the absolute relief of sending the footage viral with a single press of his finger.

He hated the man for leading him to hell and yet there was a part of him that admired the Whistleblower for the fact that he wrote that cursed email.

He dreamt of his grandfather's tailor shop. The old man had not shared the same surname as his grandsons as he had been their mother's father. Names have the greatest power, finding someone with the same first or last name is oft an exhilarating experience, but name meant nothing to the grandfather, he loved those little boys with their father's name and father's looks.

Eddie had been the youngest boy, the only company he had was his older brother, Heinrich or Henry for short. The two brothers spent a great deal of their childhood in their grandfather's tailor shop. It had been where the younger Gluskin had picked up the trade. His grandfather had died of course, just before he killed and mutilated those two women.

In his defense it had been a psychotic episode triggered by a certain scenario. Each of those women had been abused, it was evident. Strained smiles, bruised lips and other parts of skin and the way they would jump when someone talked to them. It takes one to know one.

Eddie had found himself dwelling on the two women, who had in some ways looked like his mother. They certainly acted like it. The only thing that stopped him from thinking about them (and his strung up brides who had decorated the gymnasium ceiling like something out of a grotesque story) was the visits from his brother.

Henry was older now, with greying hair and obvious wrinkles. Just a three year difference between the two and yet it seemed as if there were ten.

"I'm going to bring by daughter next time," Henry's voice pulled Eddie out of whatever he was dreaming about. The younger looked up from his lap to his brother and his always smiling eyes. "Would that be okay? Kayla wants to meet her uncle."

"Your wife will come as well I suppose," it almost made Eddie flinch when he would speak. His speech was still off, still with traces of the lisp induced by the Engine.

"Of course, Carmen loves to come here. She couldn't come today since she couldn't get out of work."

"Work is more important. How is my shop?"

Henry smiled. "Mum is taking care of it. Seven years and you haven't asked me that. Thought you loved your business?"

He did love it. He loved to fix and tailor clothes to perfection as when did so in his childhood meant that he was under the protecting watch of his grandfather. Nostalgia always lingered in the cold steel needles and various fabrics, but what a needle had done to the unfortunate men at Mount Massive...

His therapist called it a sign of recovery, he called it hell. Absolute guilt washed over Eddie in immense waves, threatening to wash him away. To accept what one has done is a giant step towards recovery as the therapist would say. To accept what one has done is a giant step towards throwing yourself into a grave as the former groom would retort.

"I had loved it," his voice was nothing more than a whisper and it was a scream. It screamed of what he had done and how a deep, sick part of him had enjoyed it. "Please don't bring Kayla."

Henry's visiting hours were soon up and Eddie was left in limbo; the first circle of hell if you will. Once the silence had made him happy, silence always followed him with work.

Now it was deafening and deadly and it made him was to weep.


End file.
